The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Liz Kendall, is required to review the level of benefits and state pensions each year and the rates for the 2025/26 financial year are now available.
Covering a wide range of benefits including Statutory Sick Pay, maternity allowance, Statutory Shared Parental Pay and Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit, the full details of the rates can be found in the Proposed Benefit and Pension Rates 2025/2026.
The review includes changes to:
The lower earnings limit, this will increase from £123 per week to £125 per week
Statutory Sick Pay, this will increase from £116.75 per week to £118.75 per week
Statutory Family-related Leave Pay, this will increase from £184.03 to £187.18 and includes statutory maternity, paternity, parental bereavement, adoption and shared parental pay and maternity allowance.
The exact dates for these changes have not yet been confirmed, but they usually come into place in early April 2025.
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Other increases
Inflation-linked benefits and tax credits will rise by 1.7% from April 2025, in line with the consumer prices index rate of inflation in September 2024. This includes Universal Credit and other benefits, statutory payments linked to participation in the labour market and additional state pension and pension credit elements other than the standard minimum guarantee.
The basic and new state pensions will rise by 4.1% from April 2025, in line with the annual increase in the average weekly earnings index for May–July 2024.
In due course, a statutory instrument which provides for the increases in DWP benefits from April 2025 (the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2025) will be put to the House of Commons.
It will apply to Great Britain, except for Attendance Allowance, Carer’s Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, Industrial Injuries Benefits, Personal Independence Payments and Severe Disablement Allowance, which the Order will set for England and Wales only.
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